British Airways, Iberia and American Airlines have provided the European Commission with concessions in order to gain approval for their proposed marketing and pricing tie-up. Will it be enough to get the green light?

The Reuters news service reports that the three airlines are offering to give up some landing and take-off slots for routes from London to Dallas, London to Boston, London to Miami and possibly London to New York. Now that the European Commission has received the list of slots that the three airlines are willing to give up, interested parties (namely rival airlines) are being given one month to comment on the concessions. One airline, Virgin Atlantic, wasted no time in responding. Virgin president Richard Branson, who has been a longtime vocal opponent of the joint venture, said in a statement: "I continue to question why the Commission is even considering these proposals to try and put right the consumer harm of this monster monopoly when it does not seem to have any evidence of concrete consumer benefits."

Interestingly, the slots the airlines are offering to give up are saturated with frequent service by one airline or another. For example, a London Heathrow to Dallas/Ft. Worth flight is already offered three times a day, twice by American Airlines and once by British Airways. DFW is an American Airlines fortress hub, meaning AA is by far the dominant carrier. In the case of London to the U.S., BA and AA look to be hedging their bets that the routes might be unattractive to other carriers because of a lack of connecting traffic to a partner airline. On the other hand, any partner airline will probably have service from DFW to its own major hub, giving the new competitor access to any major city by way of a major airport like DFW. However, this still might be less attractive to a competitor than non-stop service from Heathrow. All four cities being offered by the airlines from Heathrow happen to be ones where American Airlines is either strong or is the dominant carrier. But what would the alternative be? Give up nothing and still dominate the market?

American Airlines, BA, Iberia, Finnair and Royal Jordanian Airlines last month secured tentative approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for their plan to form a global alliance. The DOT has given interested parties 45 days to object. Answers to objections will take a further 15 days, according to Reuters.